Declare 8 districts as atrocity-prone: Evidence

Madurai: The state govt must take steps to declare districts prone to caste-based violence as ‘atrocity-prone zones' and take steps to mitigate such incidents, the NGO Evidence has said.A Kathir, the NGO's executive director, was briefing reporters in Madurai after holding a fact-finding study on the incident in which two people were killed and five others sustained injuries in an attack by a gang on people at Perumpathu village near Nanguneri in Tirunelveli district. He urged the state govt to notify Madurai, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Sivaganga, Pudukottai, Ramanathapuram, Theni, and Thanjavur districts, which are prone to caste-based violence, as atrocity-prone zones. He said the chief secretary, DGP, respective district collectors, superintendents of police, and commissioners of police should study the reasons for the recurrence of such caste-based violence and take steps to prevent them in future. In the Nanguneri incident, though one of the victims was a dalit, police failed to register a case for the offence under Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. This was because, in this case, the victim is a Christian; however, his wife is a Hindu. "A change in religion does not make any difference," he said.Kathir urged the govt to provide Rs12 lakh as compensation to the family of the deceased John under SC/ST Act, a govt job, monthly pension of Rs17,000, and bear the full educational costs of his two daughters. He also urged the govt to provide Rs12 lakh as compensation to the family of the deceased guest worker Trinath from Odisha and provide pension to his wife. "The state govt should come up with action plans to strengthen the intelligence department," he said, pointing to the department's failure in preventing such incidents.